[REVIEW] The Particle Theory: From Dust (XBLA)

Let's get this straight up front. I didn't cook this game. But hey! I'm still a gamer at heart and I've been lucky enough to give this fabulous little XBLA game a look.

I was a big fan of Black & White from the epicly eccentric Mr. Molyneaux's Lionhead Studios. At first glance, you wouldn't be blamed for putting From Dust into the same "god game" bucket. To be fair, I thought the same for the first couple of levels. However, it didn't take long for me to realise it's really something different. Find out just what after the jump!

Ooooh, the suspense! But seriously, about 2 or 3 levels in, I realised that From Dust was as much an engineering-physics puzzler as it is a god game - if not more so! But let's back pedal a little here and fill in the basics.

There are lots of balls.

The basic premise here is that you play and ethereal anthropomorphisation (wow) of the collective 'Breath' of your village of people. As the Breath you have the power to manipulate the elements, the basic of which are Water, Earth & Lava (careful, burnies!) You use these abilities to shape the land to allow your people to get from place to place and extend their control of various regions of each land you're in. The ultimate desirable result for each level is to help your villagers open a portal to escape to the next land left by the mythical Ancients. Alternatively you lose, by allowing all your mans to die :( Boo.

Run away!

While all this is going on, you're faced with the constant threat of catastrophic natural events. SUPRISE! Full-on tides, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and these crazy caldera thingo's where the land just sorta shifts. Let me tell you... sh*t gets hectic with all this going on. Fortunately, your people learn new things as they build new villages (by 'discovering' totems left by the ancients) that allow them to self-protect through using spells against water and hot, sulfurous, burny lava. The team at Ubisoft Montpellier have done their tribal anthropology homework and have built neat little things in there like when one village learns a new spell, they automatically send out a dude with a knowledge 'kite' (yes.) to teach the other villagers. Nice.

Ooga booga (a Crash Bandicott reference,
not a racial slur. Promise.)

The premise is really cool and the gameplay is different enough from other god games to set From Dust apart. I'll be honest, I downloaded this on Saturday morning and before I knew it, it was Tuesday! Ok...maybe not Tuuuuueeesssday, but at least very late Saturday arvo before I realised that I was on the last level! I got totally sucked in, blobbed out on the couch with the dogs and THAT is what I want from a game. What's impressive is that this is a downloadable game for just 1200 MS points.

For those of you that have played B&W the thought of all the manipulation and camera control with an Xbox controller might be a bit of a daunting task - don't be put off though, if you've played Portal, you'll have no issues with the basic controls of this game - left trigger to pick up matter, right trigger to drop matter, right stick move the Breath, left stick rotate the camera - too easy. Another concern I normally have with this type of control schema on consoles is the speed of the cursor - no worries in Dust as there's a modifier button that makes it zip round the screen like no man's business.

The actual gameplay and challenge the levels provide is great. The difficulty curve felt about right to me as a big fan of puzzlers - steep enough to keep you thinking, but not so steep you trip and smash your teeth on the slope as you fall. Like I said, I worked through most of the game in the better part of a day with nearly all the collectibles and unlockables achieved - there are full-price, boxed games I've completed faster than that. Now, just the final level remains and I'll tell you for free... I'm stumped. But I don't mind this though. This is the final puzzle, the last boss, the ultimate challenge and it really feels that way and I'm OK with having restarted it about 20 times so far - just so I can test each little piece of my theories. OCD much? Me? Nooooo...

Your homies.

Not everything is great, mind. At first, I thought the game had failed on install or something as there was a weird loading delay before even the main menu screen showed. It popped after a while, but way too slowly for a game installed to disc. These delays carried over to the inter-level loading screens where the (rather repetitive) loading cutscene tended to jitter and stutter a bit - which is a shame 'cause it looks like it would be kinda dramatic... if it wa...sn't sto....ppin...g and starti...ng constantly. Maybe it was just my old 360 "fat", but that was a disappointing little lack of polish on an otherwise pretty decent game.

Overall, I would say that From Dust is not just a reasonable way to spend 12-hundy points, but is is one of the TOP ways to spend your spare Microsoft buckeroos right now! The thought that has gone into the level and gameplay is deep. I really like the way the controls didn't hold back what could very easily have been destroyed by something awkward or clunky. Sure, there are a couple of little slightly tarnished bits here and there, but honestly, they mean bugger all to the game when you get down to nuts and bolts.

If you like games, buy this one. If you love puzzlers, god games, tribal drums or have a soft spot for ethereal anthropomorphisations go buy this game now.

-jeffois

Images ©2011 Ubisoft